


Also Known As

by evieeden



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arc Reactor, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, F/M, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Man 2, Palladium Poisoning, Red Room, SHIELD, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:53:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5797648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieeden/pseuds/evieeden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha was sent to watch over Tony Stark. Just watch! Those were her orders. Anything else was just improvisation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Natalie Rushman

**Author's Note:**

> So as part of my great rewatch of all the MCU films the other day – I keep getting distracted and running back to Winter Soldier – I watched Iron Man 2 once…or maybe twice. And since I loved writing Natasha/Tony during my advent fics, I decided to do it all over again. So, I hope you like this first chapter and thanks so much for taking the time to read it. Cheers.  
> As always I own nothing to do with Marvel.

“You. What’s your name?”

“Rushman, Natalie Rushman.”

It had almost been too easy. Show up looking presentable – modest, but attractive – she knew how to play the game and hopefully Stark would take the bait.

She had volunteered to take the papers over to Pepper Potts, knew that her colleagues would assume that she was trying to curry favour with the new CEO, but her bait was altogether different.

She had seen Tony Stark from a distance in at headquarters, heard about his illness from Fury, but he was different than she’d expected up close.

Dressed in workout gear, he was relaxed, less imposing. There was no trace of performance or artifice on his face as he watched her hand the file to Pepper to sign. There was energy though, barely contained energy that rippled throughout the room.

Stark’s bodyguard, Happy, seemed content to move around it, but she could feel Pepper stiffening, her shoulders hunching.

Interesting. Clearly Potts wasn’t on the same wavelength as Stark was.

“Front and centre, enter the church.”

Pepper tried to protest but she reassured her with a smile and an offhand comment. She knew how to humour people… she also knew how to catch someone’s attention.

Slipping her shoes off, Natasha slid between the ropes and stood in front of Stark, running her eyes impersonally over him.

Physically he appeared to be healthy, although his sweats hid a multitude of issues, his face was flushed from the exercise and he took a swig from a bottle that apparently contained a chlorophyll smoothie. If he’d been any other rich man, she would have rolled her eyes at his pretentiousness. As it was, she knew that he was only drinking it to try and prolong his life.

She met his eyes again and realised that he had been studying her as closely as she had been analysing him.

There was intelligence, real intelligence, behind those eyes. She needed to remind herself of that.

“What?”

She kept her face carefully blank but blinked when she realised that he had noticed her attention. It was the first time she had slipped up; normally her targets were too busy staring at her other attributes to notice what she was doing.

She saw the moment he recognised he wasn’t going to get an answer from her and took another gulp of his drink.

“Happy, give her a lesson.”

She exchanged words with Hogun about her boxing experience, answering on automatic as she struggled to hear what Stark was saying to Pepper. At one point he asked how she spelled her name and she knew he was running a search on her. They had prepared for that, although she wasn’t sure her secure cover would last if he decided to dig a little deeper.

The voices behind her got lower and lower until she was straining to hear and Pepper’s louder, “No, it’s not,” made her swing her head around to see what they were disagreeing about.

Pepper looked angry, high spots on colour on her face, while Stark seemed more contemplative.

She didn’t hear the words Happy spoke, but she had been working too long under too dangerous circumstances for a punch to take her unawares.

Grabbing his fist, she twisted it around, using her momentum to swing her legs up and around his neck, throwing him off balance and pinning him to the floor. She grunted as she held him down, pushing against his flailing body. In the background she heard a high-pitched shriek and a low cheer of encouragement.

She blinked and came back to herself.

She had forgotten – not for long, just for a moment – but she had dropped her cover at the perceived ‘attack’.

Scrambling to her feet, Natasha straightened her clothes and ducked out of the boxing ring, slipping her shoes back on. She kept her head lowered as she fought to get rid of the blank face she usually wore when fighting so her enemies couldn’t tell what she was thinking and slip back into ‘Natalie Rushman from Legal’.

Stark gleefully called a TKO and rang the bell at the side of the ring before moving around to stand in front of her, those intelligent eyes watching her carefully again.

Natasha took a deep breath and grabbed her clipboard, holding it between them almost as a defence.

“I need your impression.” She had her professional face back on as she met his eyes once more.

Stark frowned at her.

“I don’t know, you have a quiet reserve… Umm… you have an old soul…”

She almost smiled at his description of her. _An old soul…_

She interrupted him. “I meant your fingerprint.”

“Right. Of course.” He almost seemed disappointed that she was back to being business-like. He stamped his finger in ink and pressed it against the document before handing it back again and turning to smile at Pepper.

Natasha shot the pair of them a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Will that be all, Mr Stark?”

“Yes! Thank you.” Potts quickly answered, stopping any reply from Stark. Her own smile was even more fake than Natasha’s and twice as condescending.

Stamping out her territory, Natasha thought, noting Stark’s own surprise at the sharp reply. It wasn’t uncommon in her line of work, but as far as intelligence said, Potts and Stark, though affectionate, weren’t a couple.

Still, she smiled and nodded at the dismissal before spinning on her heel and walking calmly out of the room, eyes burning into her back as she left.

She could almost feel what he was going to say before she heard it, just as she reached the door to the gym.

“I want one.”

“No,” was Potts’ immediate reply.

Natasha smiled as she left the building. Jealous almost-lover or not, Stark wanted her.

She was in.


	2. That Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here’s the second part of this fic. Sorry it’s taken so long for me to get out, but things have been manic around here. Anyway, I hope you like it and thanks so much for reading.
> 
> As always, I own nothing to do with Marvel.

Working in the back office in Stark’s private jet, she cursed herself.

She was there to monitor him, to keep him alive if the Palladium in his chest finally took hold of his organs. Sure, she was there to assess him for Fury’s Avengers Initiative as well, but it would be no good having Iron Man listed as a member on file if Tony Stark was dead in real life.

Trouble was that he was so… reckless.

She wasn’t sure if that was a side effect of him knowing that he was about to die, or if he was like this all the time (sources indicated it was probably a bit of both) but she couldn’t have anticipated him vanishing off to the bathroom for a minute only to show up a heartbeat later on the racing track, fireproof suit already on.

All she could do when the Russian appeared, without giving herself away, was follow Pepper’s order to get Happy and the suit.

She had watched, pressed against the glass with the rest of the spectators, willing him to get up and get out of the car, to get the suit on in time. She was itching to get out there and fight too, but that’s not what Natalie Rushman would have done. So no matter Natalie’s self-defence skills, she simpered and cried out from her safe vantage point just like everyone else did.

Luckily, Stark prevailed, but he was battered, beaten, broken. She didn’t think she’d ever seen that particular look on his face before after he returned from the jail, not in public anyway. Not even after he’d returned from Afghanistan and she’d seen him on the press conference announcing that Stark industries was no longer manufacturing weapons. It was a different kind of look.

A different kind of knowing.

Pepper was not happy with either of them.

She could hear Stark clattering around in the kitchen, trying to make a meal for the two of them to appease her. Eventually he emerged and she strained her ears to hear their conversation.

There was some chatter about an omelette – something she presumed Stark had made while cooking – and then she clearly heard him ask Pepper to go to Venice with him.

There it was. He was running away from his ordinary life and reaching out for Potts to be with him.

It was strange, she guessed, for someone like him to face his mortality. She had done it before, many many times, but then the fear of dying had been drilled out of her as a child and she always knew that she would die either in battle or after as a consequence of a mission she had undertaken. There you were braced for death with every fibre of your being, so dying in those circumstances was of little consequence.

Stark had faced death too, she reminded herself, in Afghanistan and then after with the construction of the Arc Reactor and the Iron Man suit. He faced death every time he stepped out to do good in that suit, more so because what was powering it was the only thing keeping him alive.

She thought that’s what made it different.

In Afghanistan and in his dealings with Stane, Stark had kept it together, acting to push things forward to keep himself alive, to escape from his capture, to survive the torture they put him through. He had made it through all that without falling apart.

Natasha guessed it had to happen sooner or later.

And from what she could tell the blood poisoning was a painful, drawn-out way to die.

She had known a Czech girl once who had been on a mission and cut her leg – an innocent injury usually – but not been able to treat it as she was deep in hiding at the time. By the time she had reached civilisation, the burn had already set in and her organs were failing. Natasha remembered the pale, sickly green tinge to the other girl’s skin as she had lay trembling and sweating in the safe house, vomiting up stomach acid every couple of hours.

It was an undignified and painful way to go and Natasha wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

It wasn’t as if Stark could be treated in the normal way either otherwise he would already be cured, but in this case what was killing him was also keeping him alive. He had no other choices and she doubted he would let anyone else near his chest for a while.

“You want to go to Venice?” Pepper was disbelieving.

Stark began speaking, too loud and too fast for her to catch, but she surmised from Pepper clipped responses about needing to be there for the company at this time of change that he wasn’t getting very far.

Finishing the paperwork to begin repairs on the race car Stark’s team owned, she gathered the other documents that needed signing and took them in to the pair, carefully masking her features once more so that she was the competent assistant and not an interested party.

Stark and Pepper were sat across a small table from each other in reclining seats, but the table, with what looked like an undercooked omelette on it, may as well have been an ocean. Pepper’s expression was barely welcoming and instead she seemed to be annoyed and tired with Stark’s behaviour.

Natasha could understand why, but at the same time it was so obvious that Stark was struggling with something, that he wasn’t well. He was pale in a way he had never seemed before and the creases in his face from a life spent grinning and smiling for others instead was creased with worry and tiredness. He looked… lost.

It was a feeling Natasha knew well.

This was it, she thought as she hid behind the doorway, one eye on the couple. This was the moment that could either make or break this relationship.

Stark was reaching out for once and she fully expected the other woman would reciprocate, given her latent feelings for him.

Instead the other woman smiled faintly at Stark’s stuttering. “Not everyone runs on batteries, Tony.”

Pepper closed her eyes, ending the conversation.

Stark winced and stared aimlessly out the window. Against her better judgement, Natasha felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“Miss Potts, Mr Stark, I have the paperwork for the car and for the legal team to begin work on seizing the leftover materials from Vanko’s arc reactor, since it’s proprietry technology.”

Pepper’s lips thinned at her entrance and she looked Natasha up and down carefully in a way she hadn’t done when they had first met, given that she probably didn’t realise that Natasha would be sticking around for a while.

Handing Pepper the legal paperwork, she carefully placed the racing paperwork on the table in front of Stark, careful not to pass it directly to him. As she stepped back, she thought she vaguely caught a hint of a smile on Stark’s face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

“Is there anything else you require?”

Stark opened his mouth to answer her, but Pepper beat him to it. “No, that will be all.”

Natasha nodded, but glanced towards Stark before leaving – technically he was her boss, not the woman silently fuming in front her.

His eyes slid towards Pepper before he smiled faintly again. “No…thank you.”

Against her better judgement, Natasha smiled back at him - a genuine smile, one that only a few people could draw from her, rather than her usual mask - before turning and leaving.

She was barely out of the main cabin when Pepper began to hiss at Stark.

“What was _that_?”

“What was what?” A faintly challenging tone had come into Stark’s voice.

“That! You and her…that… _that woman_!”

Natasha nearly smiled at that. It certainly wasn’t the worse thing she had ever been called, but she had thought Potts was classier than that.

Stark sounded puzzled. “Natalie?”

“Yes, Natalie,” Pepper practically spat. “Your eyes were practically out of your head.”

Stark’s voice lowered and Natasha thought he sounded like he would drop of exhaustion before Pepper noticed. “They weren’t and I wasn’t doing whatever it is that you think. I was just thanking her; you’re always telling me I should be more considerate of people.”

Natasha winced at that, imagining the look on Pepper’s face at that moment.

The woman’s anger was plainly audible in her voice. “Don’t you dare do that. I don’t even know why you hired her in the first place.”

Now it was Stark who sounded irritated. “I needed a PA, you know that.”

“And I told you that I had several suitable candidates lined up for interview.”

There was a pause and then Stark spoke again in a tone of voice that Natasha was fairly certain he had never made public before. “Which one of us is it that you don’t trust exactly?”

Pepper scoffed. “It’s not about trust.”

“Isn’t is?”

“Tony…” There was a pause. “You know how you get…”

A clatter came from behind her and Natasha quickly darted away from the main cabin and into the small office at the back. She was seated calmly in the desk chair, typing calmly away when Happy stuck his head around the door.

“Everything okay in?” he asked.

She smiled politely up at him, mask firmly back in place. “Yes, thank you. Just finishing up the incident reports for the race track.”

He laughed wryly. “Yeah, you’ll get used to filling out incident reports for the finance department. Just let me know if they start giving you crap for it. God knows they should be used to Tony by now, but every now and then Carson will kick up a fuss.”

“Thank you.” Natasha could take of herself, as Hogun well knew, but a small part of her thought he was sweet for making the offer.

That was the problem though. She couldn’t afford to think like that; especially not when she was undercover. She knew all too well how kindness could twist into something darker once people saw the real her. No, she needed to stay focused, stay on target, just do the job and get out.

These people were nothing to her really and just because Fury had somehow taken a personal interest in Stark and his people didn’t mean that she should do the same.

She would keep watch and maintain her distance – keep Stark semi-hooked and Pepper thinking that she was _that_ kind of woman – and eventually the man’s true side would out.

From today’s events, she knew that would be sooner rather than later.


	3. Miss Rushman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the latest chapter of this story – it sort of got away from me. I really hope you enjoy reading it.

Stark was going ahead with his birthday party.

It was as clear as glass to Natasha that he didn’t want to, but equally clear that he felt like he had to, like this was what was expected of him.

Pepper seemed oblivious to his internal turmoil, as did James Rhodes who had stopped by the mansion earlier to check in on Stark after Monaco.

Natasha found herself wondering about the kind of people Stark surrounded himself with, the ones he trusted to watch his back. On the one hand, he obviously believed in these people enough to let his guard down around them and they certainly seemed able to cope with the billionaire’s manic and erratic behaviour, but on the other hand, they seemed equally able to ignore their ‘friend’ when he was exhibiting one of the most blatant cries for help that Natasha had ever seen.

Pepper was caught up in the drama of officially being seen to do a job that she had unofficially been doing for the better part of fifteen years and Rhodes was pandering to his bosses, irrespective of his friend’s needs. He was two steps away from grabbing one of the suits for himself and while Natasha didn’t exactly think that Stark would object, she was worried about having such a weapon in the hands of the US Military. God knows what kind of crap they’d drag Hammer in to add to it.

That was another issue: Hammer.

He’d been in Stark’s shadow for too long and she could feel him itching to get one up, especially in light of his military contract being revoked following the senate hearing. She didn’t know what kind of shit he was messed up with, but she did know that French prison cells didn’t just blow up on their own. Vanko was still in play too somehow.

But the party was still going ahead, full of the vacuous and vacant and in her best falling-for-her-boss guise, so too would Natalie Rushman be. She would have planned to wear her best little black dress, but muted colours would probably remind Stark too much of Potts and she didn’t want him to have any…regrets.

She had picked out one of her ‘party girl’ outfits – a tight, leopard-print number that she had last worn to seduce a Russian oligarch – and mentally prepared herself to woo Stark.

When she sidled into his bedroom where he was getting ready though, her plans practically fell out of the window.

Stark looked…sad. Not just a little upset, but genuinely devastated. In the dim lighting it took her a second to spot the device he was using to monitor his blood toxicity and the reason behind his mood became apparent.

She studied him for a moment, just while he wasn’t aware of her presence. It was so strange, she thought, to meet someone who wasn’t in the intelligence community who was everything she expected and yet not everything she expected too. Normally she’d expect some level of subterfuge to account for his ability to mask his feelings, but really she expected it just came from being the only son of a very rich weapons developer. The eyes of the media on him all his life…

She would have worn a mask in public too.

Stark pinched the bridge of his nose and his head dipped down. Natasha forced herself to interrupt before he could get too morose.

“I’ve got the watches you wanted to look at.”

Stark jolted and immediately began to button his shirt up, covering the arc reactor. “Just set them over there.”

She did as asked and then began mixing him a drink. He stuttered some half-formed thoughts about the party and then sat up straighter when she brought his martini over.

Unable to resist the temptation, she arched an eyebrow as she handed it over. “Dirty enough for you?”

He nearly swallowed his tongue and she had to fight off the uncharacteristic giggles that threatened to burst out.

“That’s…umm… I’ll take a look at the grey one.” Stark coughed and indicated one of the watches. As she fetched it, he eyed her again, a bit more cautiously this time, as if he could tell that she was only playing around. She deliberately turned away from those perceptive eyes, reminding herself that Stark wasn’t one of her usual dumb subjects, and picked up the foundation to cover up the ugly bruises he had managed to pick up in Monaco. “Where did you say you were from again?”

Natasha brushed over the question. “Legal.”

He huffed out a quiet breath at that, but didn’t push any further. Instead he made some comment about how it was a bad time for an extravagant birthday party. She hummed and agreed without really paying attention.

She powdered another layer of cover-up onto his face as she considered how to phrase the report Fury would inevitably want after this party.

“Natalie, can I… call you Natalie?”

She hummed in response as she finished the last touches to his face. She would have to let Fury know about his erratic behaviour of course, it was very publicly and explicitly done. Probably some leftover form of PTSD from his time in Afghanistan, but then, who of them didn’t have some type of it?

“If this was your last birthday party,” the serious tone of his voice made her focus on him and it was in that moment that she realised how close they were, “that you were ever going to have? What would you do?”

He was scared, she realised. He was so scared and he was letting her see that fear. He was reaching out in possibly the only way he knew how.

It was daunting to have someone look at her like this, to have someone put their trust in her, if only for a little while, if only so that she could reassure him that what he was doing right now – flaunting what was left of his life in the most extravagant way possible – was the right thing for him to do to cope until a solution could be found to his blood poisoning.

She offered him the only kind of reassurance she could. “I would do whatever I wanted, with whoever I wanted to do it.”

She put a hint of suggestiveness into her voice and he leaned in towards her slightly, before recoiling back abruptly.

“Yes, I’ll take this one.”

He suddenly remembered the watch he’d been holding and wrapped it around his wrist. The shift in tone had her putting some distance between them. It wouldn’t be good for the mission to make him uncomfortable.

It wouldn’t be good for _him_ to be even more stressed and uncomfortable than he already was.

“Of course.” She put the foundation to one side and then turned back to face Stark once more, her best helpful-yet-professional face on. “Will that be all, Mr Stark?”

A faint flicker of a smile crossed his face at the question and she inwardly cursed herself for using a phrase that clearly reminded him of someone else, probably Pepper.

 _Get close to him_ , Fury’s voice reminded her. _Make him trust you so we can find out how bad the situation is, and so we can find out what kind of man he really is._

Well, she had his trust or, at least, some form of it. Now she just had to get closer to him, get him to confide in her if possible. Pepper was an obstacle to that, although she did think that the other woman was helpfully removing herself without any suggestion from her.

He nodded with a wry smile. “That will be all, Miss Rushman.”

\----------------------------------------------

She wore a leopard print dress. Longer in length than some of the other dresses she saw being worn around the party, but one that flattered all her curves. She stuck close to Stark’s side as he began to greet guests, at first in the guise of his loyal assistant, but then just because she was having a good time.

Usually that only happened when she was on missions with Clint.

Stark, somewhat unsurprisingly, was fun to be around during a party.

They swept through the room, her arm wrapped around his, laughing at the antics going on around them, drinking round after round of shots and shouting out playlist suggestions to the DJ.

At one point, one of the many girls invited, who she was sure Tony didn’t actually know, commented on how hot she found the Iron Man suit. When she made a comment about not minding taking its owner for a ride, Natasha snorted. She tried to cover it up with a cough, but from the look Stark shot her, he had heard.

When they were circulating again, he leaned in. “You were laughing.”

Natasha forced a serious expression on her face, but she knew that Stark could see right through it. “Was I?”

“Hmmm.” He contemplated her from behind his sunglasses for a minute and then grinned. “You wouldn’t want to take me for a ride?” The come on wasn’t seriously meant so Natasha had no problem smiling sweetly back at him, rather than introducing her knee to his balls.

“I think taking your suit for a ride would be more interesting.”

He laughed at that, free, easy, accepting the rebuff without complaint. “With all the upgrades, it probably would be.”

He pulled back and looked at her for a moment, the expression on his face similar to the one he had first given her in the gym, as if he was trying to look past the mask and figure her out. His smile changed slightly and she knew he had come to some kind of decision.

“Wait here.”

He disappeared back in the direction of his bedroom and Natasha took the opportunity to do a sweep around the room. Pepper hadn’t arrived yet, neither had Rhodey, but then it was relatively early still.

She was just admiring the gaudiness of an actress’s chandelier-style necklace, when Stark returned, a sly smile on his face. Natasha was immediately wary.

“So, you want to take the Iron Man suit for a ride, huh?”

Caution, inbuilt after years of training had her biting her tongue. He laughed, seemingly finding her silence funny.

“Ta da!” He held up a gauntlet from the suit, with a secondary cable leading out of it. As she watched, he reached up under his shirt and attached the cable to one of the connection points surrounding his arc reactor. Natasha caught a brief glimpse of his stomach, surprisingly toned for a businessman, but then she supposed he did a lot of work by hand, and the black veins running down from his chest where the device that had saved his life was slowly killing him. “I’m the tooth fairy.”

Natasha scrunched up her nose. “The tooth fairy?”

“Well, the wish fairy more like, or something like that anyway. I make dreams come true.” He winked at her and she couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face. “Come on,” he waved the gauntlet at her, “you know you want to.”

That was the problem, she did want to.

It would be irresponsible though, and ill-advised and reckless and foolhardy.

And she really _really_ wanted to.

_Natalie Rushman wouldn’t have hesitated._

It was probably unhealthy to think of herself as having multiple personalities, but hey, when embracing one of her personas would get her what she wanted…

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Stark did that peering-through-his-sunglasses thing at her and then he grinned – wide, open and honest. “Let’s do it!”

Holding the machinery steady, he helped her wriggle her fingers into the gauntlet, and then spun her around so that her back was pressed to his chest. He laughed a bit drunkenly and she echoed him with a breathy giggle. The gauntlet was surprisingly heavy, but she already felt more powerful just with the one piece of the suit on.

This was such a bad idea. _Such_ a bad idea.

“What do I aim at?” She bounced lightly on the toes of her shoes, the excitement only half-Natalie. The rest was all Natasha.

“Ummm, the sculpture?” He waved towards an ice sculpture of Iron Man. “I’m melting. The only thing we can do for me at this point is to end it dramatically.”

He delivered the line with a smile, but the words were just a little too close to home.

Natasha ducked her head, her exciting waning. “I don’t know. This is a bad idea.”

She just needed to remember to stay on task, stay focused, be flirty but not too flirty.

“Oh come on,” Stark cajoled her.

She glanced around the room quickly. She couldn’t see anyone she recognised from SHIELD, but that didn’t mean that no-one was there, and while she thought she could be forgiven a lot during missions, she wasn’t sure that blowing up ice sculptures using a repulsor beam around civilians would be accepted.

“There’s all these people around.” It was a token protest and she thought that Stark knew it.

“It’s for them. It’s my party, it’s what I want.”

Stark continued to list the reasons why she should do this and as he did so, he stepped closer, warm against her back, one hand coming up to rest on her stomach, holding her against him.

“Come on. Hike it up.”

The shots were starting to tell on Stark and he giggled as he helped lift the hand holding the gauntlet up. She giggled too, not drunk, but warm and hyped up on anticipation. They both snorted like idiots and Stark turned his head to survey her face for a moment. She beamed up at him, her excitement at getting her hand on a piece of the suit helping to buoy up her harmless appearance.

“On three…fire in the hull…one! Nail it!”

The repulsor whirred in preparation and then blasted a beam of energy out towards the ice sculpture, which shattered violently. Despite Stark’s support, the ricochet from the gauntlet sent their arms flying over their heads and they laughed together somewhat hysterically as everyone around the gasped loudly at the sudden destruction of the sculpture.

They were drawing too much attention, her brain kicked in. She was drawing too much attention. She needed to rein it in a little, remind herself of why she was there and what her focus should be.

“Gosh,” she laughed uneasily, slipping back into Natalie Rushman with a toss of her hair and resting a hand against his chest – keep him distracted from her slip, keep him hooked, but distant. “Packs a big punch, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Stark smiled down at her, but then caught a glimpse of something behind her. “Pep! Pepper!”

Oh. Well, she supposed it was a good thing that Pepper hadn’t walked in earlier on when they were throwing shots back; at least she could regain some kind of professionalism.

Stark lit up at the sight of Pepper. “You came.” He just sounded so delighted. “My two girls.” He grinned down at her before Pepper approached them warily and he returned his attention to the other woman.

She took the opportunity to study their interaction. It was… stilted, and she wondered how much of that was her presence and how much was their inability to communicate.

Stark was like a little puppy, snapping around Pepper’s heels, trying to get her attention and approval, while she just looked down at him.

She knew that dealing with Stark was difficult – God knows, she was ready to tear her hair out at some points and had only been working for him for about four days – but a part of her thought less of the other woman for the way she responded to him with barely concealed annoyance.

“Here.”

She snapped back to full attention when Stark tried to pass off the present that Pepper had given him to go with the others.

Natalie smiled up at him, practically simpering, and waved the gauntlet that was still connected to his arc reactor. “We’re attached.” The small, petty part of her that wanted to provoke a reaction out of Pepper made her sidle closer and add a hint of suggestion to her voice. “We’re very attached.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and grabbed the present back. “I’ll take it.”

She walked off even as Stark was offering to get her a drink. He was clearly upset by the rebuff, but tried to shake it off.

“That’s not… I don’t… That’s her stuff, that’s not my stuff, that’s her…” He shook his head and then smiled back down at Natasha, but this time there was something a little bit more forced about it. “Let’s go do some more shots.”

She followed him to the back of the room where he disconnected them.

“So, what do you think?” he asked her as she slid the gauntlet off. “Worth the ride?”

“Definitely,” she took a step closer to him and he gazed down at her. There was something in his eyes though that warned her against getting any closer. “Although I’m surprised your arms don’t get tired all the time.”

He was about to reply when a voice came from behind them. “Excuse me, Miss Rushman? Can I just speak to you for a moment about the fireworks?”

The moment was broken and she and Stark stepped away from each other. Natasha stared at Stark for another moment before she spun around and put a professional smile on her face. “Yes, of course.”

She followed the man who had interrupted, but glanced back towards Stark as she left.

He looked small standing there against the wall, one gauntlet in his hands. Small and alone, huddled at the back of the room during his own party, while everyone else laughed and joked and danced around him.

She felt a pang of sympathy for the man before her attention was caught up in making sure the technicians didn’t set the house on fire when setting off the firework to go off in an hour.

When she next saw Stark he was dressed fully in the suit, shooting different things out of the air to the delight of his guests. He had clearly been drinking more in her absence and it seemed clear that he had decided to take her words to heart.

Pepper tried to stop him, but eventually gave up.

Natasha was just about to step in when she saw a face she recognised across the room. Braddock wasn’t doing a very good job of blending in with the rich or the beautiful, but his presence made things more difficult. She would have to be careful about what she did from now on as she knew every move she made in public would be reported back to Fury.

Natasha caught sight of Pepper marching towards her, a scowl on her face. “This is all your fault.”

Well that was unfair.

She shook her head, ready to defend herself when all of a sudden, Rhodes made his grand appearance, decked out in one of Stark’s Iron Man suits. He began throwing orders out at people to disperse and everyone scattered.

Natasha took advantage of the mad rush of people to separate herself from Pepper, although she kept an eye on the confrontation currently happening between Stark and Rhodey.

“You don’t deserve to wear one of these.”

She saw the moment Rhodey’s words cut deep. Stark’s invention, his creation, the thing that kept him alive being taken by his friend, being stolen essentially for the greed of this country’s military…

Americans were such self-serving hypocrites.

A repulsor blast smashed one of the windows and everyone ran. With one last glance back to the battling friends, Natasha left with them. There was no way, she could spin this so Fury didn’t intervene. The eye-witnesses and Braddock’s presence ensured that.

The best she could do now was damage control so that Stark could get more help than anyone was currently providing. If Fury was going to step in – and he _would_ step in – then she wanted to make sure that he was actually useful.

Stark needed a chance.

She chose not to question why she wanted that. It was irrelevant.


	4. Agent Romanoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the latest chapter for you all. Sorry it's been a while since I last updated, but on the plus side, I recently went on holiday and wrote the next 3 chapters of this fic, so updates should follow shortly once I've got around to typing them all up.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this and cheers for reading.

“I’m withdrawing you from supporting Stark as his assistant.”

Natasha blinked, the biggest concession to an expression she would ever make in Fury’s presence.

Fury studied her carefully. She could tell that he was choosing his next words carefully. “I need Stark back on his feet… _healthy_ ,” he stressed, “and from what I hear, he’s finding you a little bit too much of a distraction.”

She cursed him and Braddock in her head, but when she spoke there was barely a ripple in her voice. “My understanding of the mission parameters was that I would be a distraction. Anything less and Stark wouldn’t have taken the bait.” She allowed a hint of smugness to enter her tone, just to watch the frown line appear between Fury’s eyebrows. “If this outcome was undesirable to you, then you would have sent someone more…”

She left the final word hanging in the air, letting him admit, at least to himself, the reason why he had really selected her for this task.

Someone more plain; someone less impetuous; someone more decorous; someone less seductive.

Oh she had no illusions about herself and her place in this organisation.

SHIELD may have been less obvious and less aggressive about pimping her out than the KGB or even the Red Room, but there were some missions that she was sent on where the information needed was impossible to get except through pillow talk.

It explained why they hadn’t let her see Clint before she accepted this job; he knew what they would want from her and he would have stopped it happening. Having been the one to recruit her, he was even more protective of her autonomy than she was.

She could almost see Fury working out the best way to approach her next, calculating the results of each and every option. “Those parameters allowed for distractions. Do you have enough to complete an evaluation for Stark to join the Avengers Initiative?”

She contemplated lying for a minute, but then nodded.

Fury nodded. “Good. What Stark needs is a push off his ass to get this reactor problem solved. Coulson can provide that, keep him on task. If you stayed that wouldn’t happen.”

She thought about the report she had written on Stark’s illness and the need for a replacement element. Why Fury hadn’t stepped in earlier with Howard Stark’s notes, she didn’t know, but he needed to move faster if he expected the other man to work miracles before he dropped dead from septicaemia.

She wanted to see how if ended though. She was… not fond of Stark, because she wasn’t fond of anyone… but she wanted to see how it ended. There was nothing she hated more than being pulled from a mission without seeing how it ended.

It was how she was trained. You could shoot the target and walk away, but the only way to guarantee that they wouldn’t get back up again was to stand over them and watch their final breath pass their lips.

“There’s more.”

Fury frowned. “More?”

She nodded and made sure to keep her words perfunctory. “Now Rhodes has a suit, the military will be looking to Hammer Industries to weaponise it.”

“You suspect foul play?” Fury leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers.

She thought about the look Hammer had shot Stark when he thought no-one was looking. “I think that a suit in Hammer’s hands is far more unstable than a suit in Stark’s hands. He’s also requested a presentation slot at the Expo, which is due to take place on Friday.”

Fury just looked at her, indicating that he wanted more information.

“He had something to prove.” She left it at that.

The man opposite her sighed heavily. “Remain at Stark Industries in the meantime, keep an eye on Potts and Hammer if you can, particularly the use of Stark technologies.” He stood up and pulled his coat on. “In the meantime, suit up. I need to have a little chat with Stark. Bring the lithium dioxide.”

She nodded, blank faced as always and then moved to follow his instructions. Minutes later she was following Fury out to a car and then to the donut store where Stark was reported to be seen. As they walked they passed Braddock and Natasha made sure to send the man a glare that made him flinch and then stumble backwards. Fury caught the movement and raised a brow questioningly, before shaking his head and deciding not to ask.

By the time they arrived at the store, the vein above Fury’s eyebrow was pulsing. A newbie agent that Natasha didn’t recognise scurried towards them as they exited the vehicle.

“Director Fury, sir” he greeted them breathlessly.

“Situation report,” Fury barked, not even sparing him a glance. Natasha could easily recognise intimidation techniques when she saw them.

“Umm, we’ve secured the perimeter, sir.”

Fury stopped mid-stride and turned to the agent, his look strongly suggesting that the smaller man didn’t know what he was doing.

“And Stark?”

“Oh, Stark, yes.” The agent was looking increasingly flustered. “Stark is… umm… Stark is…”

Doing something he shouldn’t be, Natasha surmised from the other man’s stuttering. Keeping her body positioned towards the two men, she swept her eyes surreptitiously over their surroundings.

And nearly laughed out loud.

Instead, she forced her face into its usual non-committal smirk.

Fury was fast losing his patience. “Stark what?”

“Stark is on the roof,” she interjected smoothly.

Fury’s eyes immediately flickered to the top of the building where the distinctive red and gold suit was reclining inside a giant donut sign.

The agent started stammering out some half-coherent explanation for this, but Fury merely sighed, closing his eyes for a split second to regain his cool. Natasha had seen him make the same face the time after Clint came back from Ljubljana with a broken leg, an accident-at-work claims form and a story about falling down a pothole while running away from getting shot.

“Romanoff, go and secure the perimeter.”

The new agent immediately began spluttering some kind of defence about his team’s abilities, but quelled under the force of glares from both her and Fury.

While Fury went to corral Stark down from the roof, Natasha checked the perimeter that the other team had established. It wasn’t too badly done all things considered, but it wouldn’t hold long. Stark was too public a figure and people too aware of his general presence for it to last long before the paparazzi and other hangers on to come out of the woodwork.

When she got back to the store, Stark was off the roof and inside with Fury at one of the booths, coffees in front of them. Fury looked pissed off, Stark looked hungover.

She got closer just as Fury was commenting on Stark’s neck.

“I’ve had worse,” Stark bit back belligerently.

Neither man had noticed her yet, so she decided to announce her presence. Now was not the time to be lurking for information, plus Fury would want an update. She knew that Stark would be angered by her involvement with SHIELD though, possibly angry enough to take no notice of Fury’s intervention.

“We’ve secured the perimeter, but I don’t think we should hold it for too much longer.”

Both men turned at the sound of her voice, Fury with an almost dismissive glance. Stark visibly recoiled in shock before he tilted his head down, letting his sunglasses slide down his nose so he could stare at her over them. She forced herself to return his gaze evenly.

He looked her over from top to bottom – that clever, searching look – taking in her jumpsuit, the holster around her hips, her gauntlets and finally the patch with the SHIELD logo on her left arm.

He met her eyes then and if she hadn’t steeled herself, she would have flinched at the look in them. Any trust or humour or friendship in them was gone, replaced only by a hard mix of annoyance and weariness.

Even though she should be used to the abrupt shift in emotions towards her when she revealed herself, it still took some getting used to.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again, as if he didn’t know what to say.

“Huh. You’re… fired.”

It was the kindest reaction, she thought, that he could have had. If she had been him, she would have kicked herself in the teeth by now.

She wanted to apologise for the deception. It was odd; she’d never felt bad about lying to her targets before. But then, she supposed, she’d never really come across many targets who had treated her like a human before.

Fury was still watching though and she’d already given Stark a lot more leeway than she should’ve. Brazening it out was the only option.

“That’s not up to you.”

She slid into the booth next to Fury, who put one hand on her shoulder and the other around her waist, presenting her to Stark. She almost rolled her eyes at the possessive macho bullshit.

Stark wasn’t as stupid as everyone seemed to take him for; he knew she was SHIELD’s over SI’s the minute he clocked her uniform. Fury didn’t have to prove anything to the other man… and yet he did. It made her wonder why.

“Tony,” he began, “I want you to meet Agent Romanoff.”

Stark grimaced bitterly at her. “Hi.”

She completed the introduction herself, better to do it the way she wanted rather than the way others dictated.

“I’m a SHIELD shadow,” she told him, smiling inwardly at the look Fury gave her for revealing that information. “Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury.”

Stark was clearly thrown by the information she had just given him, but blustered through the conversation.

“I suggest you apologise.” His eyes were challenging and she got the message loud and clear; she was no longer one of Stark’s ‘girls’, but he didn’t seem angry really, just sort of hurt and resigned.

Natasha knew in that moment that she had just joined the list as another person who had betrayed him.

He kept eye contact with her as Fury carried on talking about Stark’s behaviour lately. The shock had turned into belligerence and he wasn’t holding back in the look he was giving her.

It almost made her smile, not because of his displeasure, but because he was the first man in a long time to be able to maintain eye contact with her for so long. Fury, Coulson and Clint were the only others who could meet her gaze for this long, and who bothered to when she was talking.

Fury mentioning Rhodes taking the suit broke Stark’s attention and she took the opportunity to study him while he argued with the older man, keeping one ear on the conversation.

He looked worse than yesterday, much worse. The blood poisoning evident on his chest was now spreading up his neck and despite the show he was putting on – the suit and the sunglasses – underneath his skin was pale and clammy. Unless he found a solution to the blood poisoning soon, he was going to die. She found herself realising that she might feel sad if that happened.

“Is that possible?” Fury looked at her and Natasha internally snapped herself back into the conversation.

She looked at Stark when she spoke though, rather than Fury. “Well, according to Mr. Stark’s database security guidelines there are redundancies to prevent unauthorized usage.”

It had annoyed her a little to be honest, when she had seen Rhodes with the suit. Knowing that Stark trusted his friend enough to give him access to the suits when all the man had given Stark was grief over his un-military approach to life.

Stark frowned when she answered Fury, as if letting him know about the suits was just one more betrayal.

“What do you want from me?” Stark seemed resigned to the conversation at long last, the humour leaving his voice.

Fury began talking, his annoyance showing now, although she thought it was the kind of tone a parent might take with a troublesome child. As she spoke he squeezed the hand he still had on her side, a silent signal, and she glided across the store to the case on the counter where she had left the lithium. Filling up the needle, Natasha tapped it twice and then turned back to the two men.

And it hit her. Fury’s little display for Stark. Pepper wasn’t the only one who thought that she and Stark were getting too close. Whatever Braddock had said to Fury it had put him on edge.

She was a professional, she got the job done, everyone knew that. And yet everyone also knew that she had only joined SHIELD on the say-so of Clint. At the end of the day, her loyalty was to a select group of people – _her people_ – not organisations. The KGB and Red Room had put an end to her loyalty towards organisations. Too easily corrupted. Maybe Fury was starting to believe that her loyalties were changing.

She considered Stark as he argued with Fury. She had, in a strange way, liked working for him, but not enough to be unprofessional.

“Hit him,” Fury ordered and with without warning she jabbed Stark in the neck with the needle and depressed the plunger.

Stark jerked away from her instinctively and she had to grab his chin and slide into the seat next to him to check the lithium’s success.

“Oh, God!” Stark was still moving around, “Are you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?”

Natasha ignored him and turned his chin from side to side to see his neck. To her gratification, the blood poisoning immediately began to subside, although she knew it was only temporary.

Stark’s next words were directed towards her. “Can you please not do anything awful for the next five seconds?”

Surprised by his words, Natasha wrenched her hand away from his face and back onto the table.

Anything awful?

Sure, she would accept the needle as something not that pleasant when it was unexpected, but she hadn’t done anything else to…

Oh.

He counted her allegiance to SHIELD and her trickery as something ‘awful’.

She hadn’t really thought of it like that. It was just her job.

“What did she just do to me?” he demanded from Fury.

Huh, now she was “she”, not even worthy of being addressed directly.

In a perverse way, she rather liked Stark’s attitude towards her now. It revealed his code. She could understand that. She wouldn’t be welcoming or polite to anyone who had tricked her either.

Stark gestured towards the empty needle. “Give me a couple of boxes of that and I’ll be right as rain.”

“It’s not a cure,” she told him, catching his attention. “It just abates the symptoms.”

“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be an easy fix,” Fury added.

“Trust me, I know,” Stark’s frustration with the situation began to leak into his voice and in that moment Natasha felt genuinely sorry for him. “I’m good at this stuff. I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for palladium. I’ve tried every combination, every permutation of every known element.”

Fury lowered his head and caught the younger man’s eyes. “Well I’m here to tell you, you haven’t tried them all.”

Stark rolled his eyes, but he was desperate and desperate men will try anything.

“Come on.” Fury’s voice was a little kinder. “Let’s get you back home and out of the suit.”

He gestured towards the exit and Natasha slid out of the way so Stark could climb out of the booth.

Stark seemed to be thinking as they exited the donut store and Fury gestured towards the new agent to go and placate the owner.

“Romanoff, report back in 24 hours about the situation at Stark Industries.”

Natasha nodded and then stalked out of the parking lot towards her ride, glaring at all the agents still hovering around and enjoying the way they scattered away from her. Sometimes she enjoyed her reputation more than she would admit.

Braddock would have to get something worse than a glare. She would think of something particularly bad for him for putting doubts about her ability in Fury’s head. She would possibly involve Clint. Best to maintain some semblance of innocence.

If she could.


	5. The Imposter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally typed up this chapter. Got one more after this that's actually written and then I'll need to catch up, but for now, here's a lot of Natasha getting annoyed at Tony (which always entertains me to write).
> 
> Thanks for reading x

Getting Pepper to keep her on as one of her assistants was easy.

The other woman already knew she could work well in a crisis after Monaco and was stressed enough that she was willing to accept any help, especially after Natasha dropped some hints that Stark had locked himself in her workshop and had sent her away.

Pepper had been so busy trying to organise Stark that she hadn’t had a chance to appoint her own personal assistant yet, so instead was making do with a couple of administrators and Natasha filling in. Taking advantage, Natasha stepped into the role as if she was born to it and to her surprise, she found that she enjoyed the work. This high up in the company, there was enough going on to make the day speed by, although she gave Stark one more day before he hunted Pepper down again.

The two relied on each other, that was plain to see, and appointing her as CEO said a lot about her prominent position in Stark’s life. No family, few friends (genuine ones at least). For Stark there was only Pepper and Rhodes and from what she had heard as she drifted from office to office, for Pepper there was only Stark.

It was an oddly dependent relationship between the two and as she worked more closely with the other woman, she could see how it came about.

From an outsider’s perspective, she guessed that he and Clint’s relationship would probably seem odd too. Still, there was something about Pepper and Stark that didn’t quite gel and for two old friends, she couldn’t work out what.

As she worked, Natasha even wondered how Stark was getting on. She didn’t agree with Fury about isolating the man to work, but then she’d never do anything against the order unless necessary… She personally thought that Stark was already isolated enough with his illness and nearly felt sorry for him.

Well, actually she did feel sorry for him until he stumbled into Pepper’s office trying to make amends, pushing past the protests of the receptionist hovering in front of the room. Pepper seemed unmoved though.

As much as she liked Pepper, she did think the woman was amazingly short-sighted when it came to Stark and his worries.

Stark stared at her like she was some kind of interesting piece of a puzzle as she got Pepper to sign some paperwork before she was collected for a meeting.

Happy’s entrance broke off his staring temporarily, although she did make note of Stark’s disappointment at seeing the other man take Pepper’s side. When he laughed, she could hear the brittle note in it. “I lost both the kids in the divorce.”

Yep. Definitely not one of his ‘girls’ anymore.

She turned her gaze on him sharply though when he cleared his throat and addressed her directly.

“Are you blending in well here, Natalie?” he began, pleasantly enough if she hadn’t been able to see the calculating look in his eyes. He frowned and she had played enough roles in her life time to see the falseness behind his apparent concern. “Here at Stark Enterprises. Your name is Natalie, isn’t it?”

_Oh, he didn’t!_

If she could have strangled him in that moment, she would have – just wrapped her legs around his head and break out her garrotte. The only thing stopping her from killing him in that minute was Pepper’s oblivious presence next to her. Instead, she settled for turning her head away from him, steadfastly ignoring his presence while she dug the nails from one hand into her wrist.

Stark stared as Pepper handed her back the file, waving his finger between the two of them. “I thought you two didn’t get along…”

“No,” Pepper shook her head at him and smiled briefly at Natasha, “that’s not so.”

“It’s just me you don’t care for.”

Later, Natasha thought, she would definitely feel more sympathy towards the man given all the blows he kept on taking, but she pushed those feelings determinedly to the side for later. For now, she was going to be mad as hell towards him for deliberately trying to break her cover.

Pepper left with an impersonal reminder to remove the equipment and displays from the Expo from the office.

And Natasha let loose.

“I’m surprised you could keep your mouth shut.” She viciously scraped a pile of papers off the desk and shoved them in the file.

What she hadn’t counted on was Stark being just as angry as she was.

“You are mind-blowingly duplicitous. How do you do it? You just tear things…You’re a triple imposter. I’ve never seen anything like it. Is there anything real about you?” He scowled at her. “Do you even speak Latin?”

She didn’t know why that was the falsehood that he leapt upon but she spat some out at him just to shut him up. “Fallaces sunt rerum species.”

For some reason, it appeared to shock him temporarily out of his anger. “Which means? Wait. What?”

Too bad it didn’t get rid of hers and she stormed towards the exit, files in arms, before she wrapped her hands around his neck.

“What did you just say?”

“It means you can either drive yourself home or I can have you collected.”

“You’re good,” he shouted as she slammed the door behind her.

It wasn’t her best comeback… or her more graceful exit…and she fumed for most of the way out to her desk where she tossed the files violently onto the surface.

One of the other assistants, Judy, Natasha reminded herself, jumped at the loud noise as she passed.

“Is everything all right, Miss Rushman?”

Natasha forced a smile on her face. “Everything’s fine, thank you.”

The woman nodded but scurried away quickly, probably to tell all her friends about Stark’s visit and its effect, Natasha thought unkindly.

She stopped and took a deep breath.

She was a professional, she could remain calm even in dire circumstances. That’s why they sent _her_ in. She was not going to lose her temper and let Stark compromise her mission.

It was just a shame that Stark was impervious to her glare. Unlike the baby agents, he had balls. If she wasn’t so pissed off with him, she felt like she could have appreciated that more.

But for now she would be calm; she was a professional, damnit!

That didn’t stop her five minutes later though when Stark left – security helping him carry his possessions – and he stuck his tongue out at her as he walked past the window of her temporary office.

Natasha gritted her teeth and quickly flipped him the bird, just like she would’ve done if he was Clint.

He grinned at her.


	6. Nat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a little bit different in that there's no Tony in it. I just kind of felt like this was needed to show where Natasha's head is at. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it regardless and cheers for reading :)

She got back to Natalie Rushman’s rented apartment at one in the morning and cursed Stark Industries’ board of directors for calling an emergency meeting for no reason.

They _knew_ Pepper had been doing Stark’s job for years, they _knew_ she was more than capable of being the company’s CEO, and yet they insisted on calling a pointless meeting where Pepper was forced to face down and placate a roomful of blustering old men.

Sat behind and slightly to the left of Pepper, Natasha had been perfectly placed to glare at them all. None of them had met her eyes. It was reassuring to see that Stark notwithstanding, she still had it.

And now she was back to her temporary home.

Kicking her heels off, Natasha rotated her feet and ankles to loosen them up and then crossed to her bedroom, scrunching up and pointing her toes as she walked. It was second nature for her to take care of her feet, especially after they had been crammed into heels all day.

Grabbing her laptop off the nightstand, she quickly logged the day’s events, excluding Stark’s visit to the office. Part of her knew that Coulson – who had taken over babysitting duties – would have logged his absence from the Malibu property. The other part didn’t care to admit that he’d managed to get under her skin.

Stripping efficiently, she got reading for bed and then went to the bathroom to complete her ablutions. She had just finished brushing her teeth and taking her make up off when she heard a low creak. The air felt different too and instinct told her that she was no longer alone.

Slowly, carefully, she reached for the knife she had left on the side and then the gun taped under the sink. She then carried on getting ready like usual. Whoever was in her apartment knew that she was in the bathroom, so there was no point in pretending otherwise.

Preparing herself, she swung open the door and flung the knife at the dark-clothed figure reclining on her bed.

The figure rolled out the way, far too quickly for a normal opponent, and the impact of the knife hitting the headboard made a satisfying crack.

There was only one person she knew who would both expect an attack like that and get out of the way in time.

“Next time, I’ll be sure not to miss.”

Clint grinned up at her from where he was sprawled on the floor. “Come on, Nat, you knew it was me.”

She scowled at him.

“If you didn’t, you’d have used the gun instead of the knife. Much more permanent.” He jumped to his feet and then flopped down again on the bed and wriggled around until he was comfortable.

Natasha spared him a glance as she removed the knife from the wall and investigated the damage. “Boots.”

Slowly and deliberately, Clint lowered one foot at a time and then kicked off his boots.

Confident that she could repair the damage caused by her knife, Natasha put the weapons down on the bedside table and got comfortable under the sheets. Clint rolled over onto his stomach so he could see her better.

“What happened?” he finally asked.

“Nothing,” she replied shortly.

He shrugged. “Okay then, good to know everything’s going well.”

She turned to face him and studied his expression. “You’re going on a mission,” she deduced.

He nodded. “Tomorrow morning probably. Ground crew’s already on its way and Coulson’s supposed to join up later.”

“Who’s the lead?” she asked.

“Sitwell, for now.”

She nodded. “Where?”

“New Mexico.”

“Land of Enchantment,” she commented.

“So I’ve heard.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Maybe I’ll meet an enchantress out there.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’d love to hear you tell Laura that.”

“Yeah.” His eyes grew dreamy. “You know Lila can count all the way up to 20 now.”

“Good for her.” Natasha smiled at the thought of the young girl. “Thank God the women in your family have got brains at least.”

“Hey, Cooper’s smart too,” he protested.

“Well, all that proves is that intelligence skipped a generation in your family.”

“Probably,” he accepted cheerfully.

Natasha picked at a loose thread on her duvet while Clint investigated the state of his nails.

“Stark bothers me,” she finally admitted.

“Oh.” He didn’t even look up.

“He called me a triple imposter and nearly outed me in front of Pepper Potts. He said…” She paused and then swallowed hard. “He said that I tore things apart. I wanted to kill him.”

She turned to study Clint’s face, hating his studiously neutral tone of voice which told her nothing.

“I imagine,” he retrieved a knife from his ankle to pick some dirt out from under his thumbnail, “that he was annoyed that you infiltrated his business and his home under false pretences.”

She didn’t even ask how he knew what was going on. Of course he knew.

“I’m just doing my job,” she protested, “same as always.”

Clint smiled as if she amused him. She resisted the urge to stab him with his own knife.

“I do this all the time too and it doesn’t bother me. Infiltrate the company, get close to the money and the higher-ups and stop the bad guys. Why is this any different?”

When she looked to the side, Natasha found that Clint was giving her the look - the one she hated – that said that no matter how old she was, she was a baby when it came to normal, healthy interactions. She didn’t really feel that Clint was much ahead of her in that regard, but then, he _did_ have a semi-functioning relationship and family so he was her bench post for ‘normal’.

Clint put the knife down and wriggled around so he was lying sideways, his head propped against her stomach. Natasha let one hand fall down to scratch against his scalp.

“It’s different,” he begun, “because Stark isn’t a bad guy, not really. He’s a jackass by all accounts and sheltered from the impact his company was having for a long time, but he’s turned things around, stopped all weapons production.” Clint grinned. “A shame really. I would’ve loved to get my hands on one of those Jerichos.”

Natasha smacked his head. “You’d just end up blowing your chickens up with it.”

He shrugged. “My point is…”

“Oh, you had a point, did you?”

“My point is,” he pinched her leg, “maybe you like him.”

Feeling her body tense underneath him, Clint rushed to explain. “I don’t mean like _that_. I just mean maybe you like him because you can see that he’s trying to do better, even if other people can’t.”

She thought about it. Wasn’t that the exact reason why she’d been so dismissive of Pepper and Rhodes, because they weren’t paying attention to just how hard Stark was trying to be okay?

“How long will you be in New Mexico?”

Clint accepted the change of subject with good grace and she resumed her ministrations to his hair.

“Not sure at the moment. Few weeks maybe. Fury’s got some kind of super-secret side project going on at the moment that he’s threatening to put me on, but I expect that I’ll only move onto that once Coulson goes too. How about you?”

“A week. Two maybe. Right now I’m stuck waiting for Stark to sort himself out or Hammer to make a move.”

“Justin Hammer?”

She nodded.

“You think he will?” Clint craned his neck around to look at her.

Natasha shrugged. “He’s got a presentation slot at the Expo tomorrow, so I guess I’ll find out then.”

Clint took that as his cue and heaved himself off the bed to put his boots back on and Natasha sat up.

“If you’re done before I am, do you mind swinging by the farm for a few days, just to check in?”

She smiled. “Of course not.”

Clint nodded at her and edged around the bed towards the door.

“New Mexico, right?” She wanted to help him if she could.

He paused. “Right.”

She searched her brain for anything she had learnt about the state during her weekly hack of SHIELD’s files.

“There’s an enhanced in Santa Fe.”

Clint shook his head. “We’re further out from there. Puente Antiguo or something.”

She shot him a glance to tell him that his ‘just a dumb carnie’ act wouldn’t work with her. Still, the name of the town rang a bell.

“There’s scientists out there that were being monitored. Two of them. Astrophysicists, I think.”

“Astrophysicists, huh?” Clint tilted his head to one side. “Space and beyond. Sounds like fun.”

Natasha nodded at him. “Be careful.”

He shrugged, a broad smile on his face. “I always am. See you on the other side.”

He mocked saluted her and then was gone. Natasha listened as he re-locked her door from the outside and then settled back in her bed. She thought about their discussion about Stark.

Maybe she actually liked him?

What a stupid idea.


End file.
